Introduction

This chapter is the first of three that focus on the 73 case studies carried out among European voluntary organisations on opportunities and restrictions for older volunteers from an organisational perspective. From an active ageing perspective, the overall aim of the three chapters is to understand whether voluntary organisations are inclusive enough to accept older people as volunteers, if they appreciate older volunteers in terms of available skills and resources, and if they are willing and prepared to invest in them through pro-active strategies and measures. Furthermore, we look to determine whether negative stereotypes and prejudices towards older volunteers may be present among voluntary organisations. This is important to really understand, because voluntary organisations represent the ‘demand’ of voluntary work, yet very little is known about their policies, opinions and behaviours towards older volunteers. Thus, these three chapters constitute the main innovative aspect of this volume. They deal with the meso level, and relevant to the conceptual framework employed in this volume as described in Chapter Two are questions such as: do voluntary organisations employ or plan to employ special measures in order to recruit and retain older volunteers for as long as possible? What is actually being offered to older volunteers by these organisations? How do voluntary organisations perceive the consequences of an increasingly older workforce and of informal family care on the contribution of older people as volunteers?

The methods used in these three chapters are described in detail in Chapter One. It is useful here to remember that the activity sector and age structure of the volunteer workforce were the main criteria adopted for selecting voluntary organisations to be included in this study. The final sample is described in Table 11.1 (in-text citations of organisations through the three chapters are based on what is reported in note a).

The three chapters are conceived as reporting results from case studies that deal respectively with the following: the internal management of older volunteers in terms of policies, behaviours or attitudes (this chapter); how the welfare mix conditions the way in which older people's labour market participation and care obligations have an impact on both the participation of older volunteers and organisational activities (Chapter Twelve); and voluntary organisations’ orientations towards responding to future societal changes through volunteers’ age management practices (Chapter Thirteen).